BOSTON -- The Rev. Richard Buntel and the Rev. Gerald Hickey were among six priests suspended Thursday amid allegations of sexual abuse. The 1990 cases against Buntel and Hickey ended in a settlement that included the promise they would never be assigned to a local parish.

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NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reports that Cardinal Bernard Law returned to Boston Friday to an ever-growing scandal that is triggering a new series of questions.

Attorney Robert Sherman said Friday that he was shocked that two priests dismissed from their jobs Thursday were involved in a sex abuse case settlement that required the archdiocese to keep them away from parish life.

In the six days that Law was at the Vatican, at least two dozen more priests have been linked to the widening sex abuse scandal in the Boston Archdiocese.

Six clergymen most recently removed from their assignments include Brockton Hospital chaplain David Murphy; Father James Power from St. James the Great parish in Wellesley; Father Robert Ward, an archdiocese office worker; fill-in priest Father Thomas Forry; Hickey, assisting at St. Helen's in Norwell; and Buntel, business manager at St. Thomas of Villanova in Wilmington.

"There is no priest presently assigned anywhere who is, as far as we know, guilty of sexual abuse," Law said last month.

That statement was made twice by Law, which seems to contradict the growing number of accused priests that are being dismissed from their posts, some of whom have already been targets of quietly settled lawsuits.

Attorney Sherman said he represented victims in the mid 1990s of two of the priests dismissed Thursday. Sherman said that in settling cases against Hickey and Buntel, the archdiocese promised the two men would never again be given parish duty.

"These were clear promises that were made, and that was a condition of all the settlements, was the understanding that in no way, shape, form or manner these priests would be put in a position where these priests could have access to other children," Sherman said.

Sherman said that there was no way Law could not have known that the priests had been involved in a settlement.

"This was not done in secret," he said. "The archdiocese knew who those priests were and what the allegations were that were being made against them."

Sherman also said he believes the cardinal had to have known, because the settlements were all approved by Bishop William Murphy, who was recruited from Rome to be Law's right-hand man in Boston. Murphy has since left Boston for another assignment.